University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university in the Westwood district of Los Angeles. It opened in 1919 as the Southern Branch of the University of California. In 1929 it moved to its current campus of about 420 acres. It is the second-oldest undergraduate campus of the ten-campus UC system, and it grew into one of the largest research universities in the United States.

Academic units include the College of Letters and Science, the Samueli School of Engineering, the Anderson School of Management, the David Geffen School of Medicine, the School of Law, the Fielding School of Public Health, the Luskin School of Public Affairs, the School of Theater, Film and Television, the Herb Alpert School of Music, and schools of education, nursing and dentistry. The first message over ARPANET was sent from Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at UCLA in 1969. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center anchors its clinical research, and annual research funding exceeds US$1 billion.

UCLA enrolls about 47,000 students, including roughly 14,000 graduate and professional students. International students come from more than 100 countries. More than a dozen Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the university as faculty or alumni. Its alumni include Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Francis Ford Coppola.

UCLA offers more than 125 graduate programs through its Graduate Division, including PhDs, research master's degrees and professional degrees such as the MBA, MPH, MFA and JD. Doctoral students are usually supported through teaching and research assistantships and fellowships. UCLA runs on a quarter calendar, so courses move quickly. The campus sits between Bel Air and Santa Monica, and many graduate students live in university apartments across the Westside.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, University of California, Los Angeles lists 205 graduate programs across 50 subjects: 89 master's programs and 101 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in biology, public health and education. University of California, Los Angeles holds rank 17 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.